These shootings in Hiroshima, for the series of twenty installments that was eventually titled "Hiroshima Now," continued from March until August 1965.
I had no intention whatsoever to take photographs that demonstrate the misery caused by the atomic bomb, such as pictures of deformed bottles and clocks molten by the heat, or the charred clothes of victims.
Twenty years after the bombing, life in the city was back to normal, and “things” that contained those loathsome memories were no longer to find in the streets. The Atomic Bomb Dome was little more than a monument visited by tourists, and the "terror" was quietly sheltered inside the museum in the Peace Memorial Park.
Nonetheless, out in the streets there was definitely something, like a shadow of the bomb that was still hanging in the air. To me it seemed to have coalesced, transformed and promoted in the blanks that are hidden under the cover of ordinary daily life.
Still without a clue what exactly it was, I think I just pointed my camera at that strange, invisible air, and took those photos.

Kenji ISHIGURO

石黒健治

Born in 1935 in Fukui Prefecture. Graduated from Kuwasawa Design School in 1959, and received a Best New Artist Award from the Photographic Society of Japan in the same year. Main exhibitions include “Fuko na wakamono-tachi,” Natural,” “Theater,” and “Fufu no shozo.” His works have been published in photo books such as Ken-san, HIROSHIMA NOW, and Natural, and in the photo-mystery book Sachiel-shi no passport. His broad-ranged activities further include taking charge of photography for Shohei Imamura’s film “A Man Vanishes,” and directing the movie “Muryoku no ou” (Toei Central Films) among others.